The Boys from Syracuse by Foster Hirsch

Author:Foster Hirsch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cooper Square Press
Published: 1998-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

6

All in the Family

The crash affected the theatre a little later than it affected most businesses,” John Shubert claimed. For a couple of seasons after the stock market tumbled, the Shuberts behaved as if indeed they had remained unscathed. During 1929–1930, they mounted twenty-one productions. In 1930–1931, their offerings swelled to an impressive twenty-three productions. And the following season, thirteen new productions were unfurled under the Shubert banner.

And as other producers like Al Woods, Charles Dillingham, and the Selwyns lost their money, it was the Shuberts who either bailed them out or paid for their funerals. “The other fellows, when they became secure, they had a good time, they spent carelessly but not the Shuberts; we never stopped cooking,” John said. “In the late twenties other producers entrusted their business to men who didn’t give them the right shake or advised them badly. We buried Dillingham out of the Astor: one of the great men of all times—I think we spent eight hundred dollars on his funeral.”1

The Shuberts may have thought they could ride out the deepening Depression—they had decades of sound business practices behind them and a sizable precrash nest egg that had not been depleted entirely. But in fact the Shuberts were in trouble. As the economic crisis expanded, theatre began to seem more and more a luxury item fewer people could afford. To keep as many theatres open as possible, Lee put on more shows on his own than he ever had before. He revived past hits, including Peter Ibbetson and Death Takes a Holiday. He allowed Ethel Barrymore to talk him into presenting her and an inferior supporting company in Sheridan’s School for Scandal. And along with his usual quota of boulevard imports, he also presented Judith Anderson in Luigi Pirandello’s As You Desire Me and August Strindberg’s Father. None of Lee’s solo shows made a profit.

Even more damaging was J. J.’s track record. Except for the 1929–1930 operetta revival season at the Jolson Theatre, which did well, J. J.’s musical factory had few offerings and no hits. J. J.’s last edition of Artists and Models in 1930 seemed like a faded reminder of times past. In desperation J. J. decided to revive Blossom Time and The Student Prince during the 1931 season.

Lee recognized that to survive they could no longer continue to present the same kinds of shows they always had, but J. J. was still attached to the ancien régime. Yet even he agreed to present his greatest star in a new guise. When Wonder Bar opened at the Nora Bayes Theatre on March 17, 1931, Al Jolson did not appear in blackface in a multiscene, cast-of-hundreds extravaganza. Rather, his new show was almost experimental, a tawdry backstage melodrama in an environmental staging. The theatre was converted into a nightclub as tables spilled from the stage into the orchestra. Shedding at last his blackface persona, Jolson, as the host of the Wonder Bar, a speakeasy, wandered out into the orchestra to greet the customers.

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